ABCD in FOB Land

On my first night in India, my younger cousin, Priyanka took me out with her friends. We went out to a club called Touch to celebrate someone's bday. Luckily, her friend's dad owns the club, so we drank for free.

Despite being a big believer in karma, I along with countless other American based Indians, always jokingly made fun of Indian kids in college that came to study from India (Also known as FOBs (Fresh off the boat)) FOBs are pretty easy targets...they smell due to lack of deodorant and have great accents which can be easily mocked. I never took my jokes to be mean spirited, always in good nature...I mean, my roommate was a fob.

Well, apparently, even saying something out of humor is enough to bring bad karma. I was talking to someone at the club and he called me an ABCD (American Born Confused Desi (Indian)) Never mind that I was born in India, lived here for 4 years or that I come back every 18-24 months. A bunch of people at this club snickered at my "accent" and pronounciation. My cousins have all told me that several of there friends won't like me because I was raised in America and I'm not a typical Indian. This probably would be a good time for me to make ammends for my past mistakes, but I'm petty. So instead of being the better person...this is my message to the FOBs. Screw you.

On a more serious note, I have this horrible feeling that my parents/grandparents want to get me married while I'm in India. My mom has mentioned it a few times in the last several months, my grandma looked at my hair and said we should shop me around before I lose any hair and my grandpa said if I stay in India for a year, he'll look at proposals.

72 hours in India...what have I learned? Most people here think I have a funny accent and I might not make it to 2010 as a bachelor. I must leave for China as quickly as possible.